


deus ex machina

by mady (kearuff)



Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: Gen, idk man i dont have a beta, speed typing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 19:38:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7814524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kearuff/pseuds/mady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the witch would never come, the deus ex machina he needs the most to end this endless loop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	deus ex machina

 

 

He eyes the blank space between two solid buildings, something shifts and he thinks the wind that blazes is one degree cooler. He stands, his fingers' twitching to the sensation(or instinct, his survival instinct, because he knows sometimes something is better left not known, and his dreams lately becoming more vague and tiring, he doesnt know how the two are related but he doesn’t want to take any chance). He takes another minute to stare, waiting for something. Anything. He decides to continue his first walk to his high school and not looking back.

He doesn't know why he feels relieved when there's in fact nothing's happening. He walks, alone, while he thinks none.

.

He dreams of saturday. Which has a nice earthy color about it, the sweetness of alcohol and highly tasty dumplings, all in a box with a simple maple-patterned furoshiki as the covering, he doesn’t try to stand up and look, for his nature is to wait and observe, but he has this heavy dejavu sensation like he has already plucked the food for countless time. He knows that the rice will be smooth, a bit dry but smooth on his tongue, the eggroll is not as salty as he wants because apparently he has gained weight or so _that person_ has told him over and over again)

He wakes up with his hand circling his flat stomach. The sweats that clutch to his temples don’t go unnoticed, but he thinks he heard himself talking in the dream. In his dream, not necessarily his voice, but definitely sounded like his voice. Or maybe more like, his father’s when he’s younger.

_And who’s that person?_

.

Sometimes he caught his father staring at him like not father and son, bordering on guilt and envy, and he doesn’t stare back as long, for somehow he feels guilty, he doesnt know why but he feels cornered and his father knows it too. What is it, he wants to ask, everytime. How can you look at your son like this, what have i done.

What have you done?

Because for all those years, he thinks he knows his father the most, and the least. His father’s blood is flowing in his body, ricocheting some indefinitive and quiet longing that he drifted towards his window. Something in the east, something far, far away.

He’s just finished his breakfast when his father handed him an old bow, a wood ring that looks like a thimble, maybe it is thimble, when his mother's gone to the kitchen to wash dishes, not before his smile that looks sad yet content at the same time, wishing him good luck in a whisper. He blinks to say something, but his father’s gone.

.

The thing’s black, looks puffy, and says something.

It is capable of saying something. Doumeki tries to catch it on the way, before it disappears into that blank space between the two buildings. Except there is one weird cult-like house now. The house reeks of heavy nostalgia, memories, and mind numbing scent that somehow correlates to bad feelings. He‘s hesitant, all his life he knows his family is somewhat always has stories involving them and spiritual beings, mostly his father, told by his mother, his grandfather, told by his grandmother, where his father would only nod flatly and listen. The door opens like it knows his thoughts, his reluctence, someone murmurs inside.

“Don’t be shy. Please come in.” The guy is around his age, his frame edging on feminine, but doumeki knows that he’s a guy, even with all that bold yuukata and pipe, his eyes are steady, forging something old and knowing like time itself.

The curiosity never comes, instead, he pulls something inside his pocket and shows it to the man, his heart throbbing, like he knows, he knows, finally, but there are words he needs to hear.

The man eyes the ring, his corner lips curl into sadness.

“is it-?” _Yours, from you?_ He couldn’t finish, and stares right into the man’s eyes.

The man nods, smiling and doumeki knows that it is not the first smile he’s ever seen.

.

He helps tending the shop everyday, sometimes after archery pratice, buying groceries and lots of sake for that black hole thing called mokona. (although sometimes he falls for his trap and gulps the booze like there’s no other day too)

He occupies his free time to read, when watanuki sleeps and he couldn’t, when watanuki’s gone and he’s alone in the shop, or when he’s worried because watanuki’s late and he couldnt’ contact somebody who could help, or because watanuki, just watanuki, his everything that drugs his nights .

He has used his father’s bow few times to shoot at bad spirit, dispersing the evil or saving the man that somehow manages to worry him more and more everyday. And there’s that black thing that swells up inside him whenever the man looks at him, yet looking through him. And it multiplies everytime watanuki says how he’s the exact copy of his father, and grandfather. It is intended as a joke, maybe, or he treats it as a joke when doumeki doesn’t buy his smiles, then the man would shout something or kicking him out to buy another unneeded tissue roll. He’s noticed sometimes watanuki treats him like a mirror, like a reflection of somebody that looks like exactly like him.

.

Sometimes he fears that he would never reach the surface, and his father’s shadow constantly looms in the house like a ghost. .

.

The dejavu feeling’s slowly confirmed, he’s now almost sure that he has already done this before. But he’s seventeen and he’s known the man for only couple of months. There’s something that better left unknown. But he can’t help wonders if his father and his grandfather ever wanted to wish something that is definitely uncharacteristic of a doumeki. For every pipe that looks appaling now adds to the grace of the man, the slick satin and sharp mouth of his would bring him happiness into his almost dull life, the overbearing quiet treatment from his father.

.

Turns out it is a trait for all doumeki to fall hard and never recover, or they think, or he thinks he and all the former doumeki had thought. They think in similar pattern, their composed stance, silent understanding, lies, and lies and cold pretence, and even they fall in love in similar fashion.

To that same person.

It is at the lowest degree of celcius that doumeki clenches his jaw hard and pushes the man to the genkan’s wall. He’s left his home in hurry, bag full of clothes and books on his shoulder, after they ate his mother's bland cooking, his father thanked the food and his mother smiled. He thought he’s dying, while he clutched his father collar and looked at him, really looked at him. _You coward,_ he wanted to say, _you coward but i know why and i couldn’t even punch you_. Then everything blurred as his eyes watered and he knew he had to let go.

He rings the bell, shoves the man almost too hard against the genkan’s wall, then drinks in his chrysanthemun’s sweet scent like an addict. He blames it to the cold, and it’s watanuki’s fault for looking like the thing he needs the most at the time.

.

He’s turning eighteen in a couple of minutes, and he’s not home. He doesn’t want anything. The witch would never come, he thinks, the deus ex machina that he needs the most. So he could end this endless loop of tragedy- broken loves. He lolls in the warm lap, a present he has asked boldly for his birthday. Watanuki looks alarmed, his eyes sparkling with guilt like the most beautiful thing in the world, but doumeki wants to see it. He doesn’t care, he wants him to cry, while he would not let himself being rebuffed tonight. Watanuki should know better. After all, he’s lived to know what happened to them before, all the doumeki he has loved before, and tonight, it’s his turn. For this doumeki only, him only, not a replica, not a silhouette. Before the sun rises and the only fire left inside his heart dies.

 


End file.
